Comments on: Is Christianity the fulfillment of Genesis 1:28?

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:36:51 +0000

Well said! I think we tend to view everything as too perfect before the Fall. A perfect human could never sin in the first place. The normal proceedings of the physical universe as we know it, including death, sickness, and natural calamity, was part of the plan. I think we view the Fall as more cataclysmic too nature than Scripture says it was. In fact, death seemed to be the natural state of affairs even for pre-Fall Adam: the death he died as a result was a spiritual death. In fact, the reversal of the Fall pictured in Rev. 14:13 shows that physical death would continue: “Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’”

The jury on Satan is still out for me. I do know that we give him way too much credit. You are definitely correct that Satan was an “adversary/accuser”, and never the yin to God’s yang (not the “Emperor” from Star Wars). What I’m still trying to tease out is what to do with him as a full preterist. Most full preterists are convinced that his role as an accuser of the brethren in relation to the Law was completed when the Law which caused sin was removed, and that he actually perished when he was thrown in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20). Now, that passage says he still exists, but is in perpetual torment. I am confident that he has no bearing on the modern believer’s experience — he has lost his role as accuser of the brethren. But is he still an issue for unbelievers (those “outside the city”)? I’m still weighing all evidence on this one.

By: ElShaddai Edwards

ElShaddai Edwards — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:27:24 +0000

Thanks, Steve. The Noah story often gets lost in the eschatological discussion, but one reading is that the Earth actually was redeemed at that point:

“the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.’” (Genesis 8:21, NRSV)

Note that in Genesis 3, God never cursed man or woman, but the land/Earth instead (and the serpent). With Noah, the flood waters act as the redemption (the baptism) of the land. God also seems to validate that humans are sinful from creation and were not somehow instantly transformed into wretches by disobeying God and eating the apple.

Given that the vast majority of people believe that Revelation ends with sin, evil, pain and suffering being eliminated from our conscious existence, is this a way that a full preterist would answer the question, why or how is there still evil in the world? The potential for sin was not injected into humanity, but was always there as a base quality… Satan only plies and distorts what already exists rather than actively corrupts… that’s an image of Satan much closer to Mephistopheles than the image we’re more accustomed to – perhaps also closer to more distinct “the adversary” role from the Old Testament.

Interesting stuff to think on…

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:14:29 +0000

As I responded in the comments of my last post, if the Apostles’ Creed was indeed passed down from the apostles, then it pre-dates the Second Coming, and is thus not incorrect, but fulfilled. “He will come again” was an accurate statement at the time it was first formulated.

I was talking with someone yesterday, when he expressed his unsettled feeling about full preterism in that it doesn’t postulate a final, definite end of all things. He asked me, “If full preterism is true, what is the ultimate goal?” I responded, “What was the ultimate goal for Adam?” There was never any expiration date put on the world for Adam before “Paradise lost” — so why should there be one for “Paradise regained”? With a futurist model, God was thwarted in his original goal for man (dominion over the earth) and He resigned himself to just wiping everything out and taking us all to heaven. With the preterist model, God is the victor, and His original intention will not have been thwarted but only delayed with what will amount to a short detour when taking all of eternity future into account.